Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Today, as I understand it, 4,941 people in this country have died from Covid. It is a shocking statistic and only a fraction of the people touched by this awful disease. Some 250,000 people, for example, have recovered from it. As we hopefully come to the end of the most serious stage of this pandemic and hope that nobody will be added to that death toll, there are many people across the country who have not been able to properly mourn or acknowledge the loss of loved ones, family members, parents, siblings, friends, neighbours, etc. Can we have a debate in this House on the establishment of a fund to be administered through local authorities to allow communities throughout the country to establish memorials to people in those communities who died as a result of Covid and the families who are touched by the virus? Can we allow them to erect an appropriate memorial at a local level to commemorate those people in much the same way people were during the First World War and, perhaps belatedly, people who died during the Famine? Covid is the biggest natural disaster in this country since the Famine. The First World War was not a natural disaster, but it touched many communities in a similar way. It is entirely appropriate that we as a House and a Parliament say to people that we recognise what they have gone through. There should be an appropriate mechanism for them to memorialise the members of their community who died as a result of this disease.

The details could be worked out by a committee but I would like us to come together and support the idea of a fund being established for each local authority to have a committee to establish these memorials and to have something permanent in each community, town and village around the country to remember what happened in 2020 and 2021 - hopefully just in those two years. As we know, this will probably be with us for a while but it is therefore appropriate that we move on this at this stage.